How to verify your Threads account using your Mastodon profile

It's truly beautiful to see Threads begin to embrace indieweb and federated social web protocols. This is a first step; true federation is, I've been assured, coming.  #Technology [Link]

Cheltenham Township taxes

It turns out that Cheltenham Township, the municipality where I live across the northern Philadelphia border, incurs an extra earned income tax on top of the state and federal taxes that I’m used to paying. This would have been fine if I’d had any idea that such a

Why Sam Altman wants to scan two billion eyes

We’ve seen the United Nations share their biometric registration of Rohingya refugees with the Myanmar government without their consent. A private company that subcontracts services in other countries makes accountability very difficult when there are rights violations.”  #Technology [Link]

House GOP adds dozens of anti-LGBTQ+ provisions to must-pass bills

Smuggling naked bigotry through bills that must pass to keep the government working is a deeply underhanded tactic. It's hard to see the modern Republican Party as anything other than a party of exclusion, catering to the dregs of the twentieth century who desperately don't want

Google says AI systems should be able to mine publishers’ work unless companies opt out

I strongly disagree with this stance. Allowing your work to be mined by AI models should be opt-in only - otherwise there is no possible way for a publisher or author to apply a license or grant rights.  #AI [Link]

Medium is for human storytelling, not AI-generated writing

Medium has made it clear that it is not a home for AI-driven content. And it's experiencing record growth now that its recommendation engine has been re-tuned for substance, as decided by humans. This is all great news: for Medium and as an example for everyone

Being Black in a Small Town

“When popular culture thinks of Blackness, rarely does somebody think of a tiny little town or a mountainside and the Black person who’s there. I want to be a part of revealing that this thread—that Black skin—can be even on the side of a mountain.”  #Culture [Link]

How to Uphold the Status Quo: The Problem With Small Town Witch Romances

I see this as less of a problem in cozy witch fiction - which, I must be clear, I have read zero of - and more of an issue in American fiction as a whole, across all media. These books (probably) aren't actively laundering racist ideas; they're perpetuating

How We Create Custom Graphics at The Markup

I like this approach to building graphics for journalism. Management of these kinds of static assets feels like a cumulative problem, but lightweight HTML / CSS / JS is pretty portable and sandboxable. And ACF is the hidden hero behind journalism's WordPress sites.  #Media [Link]

AI language models are rife with political biases

Different AI models have different political biases. Google's tend to be more socially conservative - possibly in part because they were trained on books rather than the wider internet. Regardless of the cause, this is proof, again, that AI models are not objective.  #AI [Link]

Raku: A Language for Gremlins

That's a giant "nope" from me, but your mileage may vary.  #Technology [Link]

PIE failed. But it’s a failure worth celebrating and learning from.

It's very painful to see accelerators that are also vibrant community hubs shut down because of business dynamics. I've lived that. What I can see here is someone who cares about his community. I was never a part of PIE, but I know Rick did it